by Clea Simon
‘That’s—’ His glance is furtive. Scared. ‘That’s not mine. There was a collection.’
‘Peter?’ She’s waiting.
‘Look.’ He turns to face her, full on. ‘It isn’t safe for you here, Miss Care. It just isn’t. Please—’ He gestures toward the warehouses. Away from the wharfside – and the stone structure there. ‘Please, I know you’re working to find Rafe, but this isn’t a good way to start.’
She opens her mouth as if to speak. She has already told him that she has another client – the woman – whose case she must undertake before she begins his. That she did not come here on her prior client’s business, that she came here on a quest of her own, is not of his concern. But she stops before she corrects him. Before she gives away information about her own movements and motives.
‘Do you want me to abandon your case?’ she asks instead. Because of his bowed legs, he stands not much taller than she does, making it easier for her to look into his face. ‘Give you your deposit back?’
‘No.’ He turns away, much as I would do were someone other than the girl to stare straight at me. ‘No, I don’t want that.’
‘Well, then.’ She nods. ‘We’ll talk. And, Peter?’
He turns back toward her, some mix of hope or sadness dragging his face down. ‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for helping me.’ She hands the rag back. ‘It was kind.’
He takes the rag then, and as he walks away, he bows his head, almost in obeisance. It is an acknowledgment, much like the title with which he addresses her, of respect. Of the difference in their states. Perhaps of the role he has come to accept, hobbled by his body and by age.
She studies him as he walks off, that peculiar rolling gait taking him slowly across the open cobblestones and toward the shadowed streets beyond. She may be green, this girl, but she has had some training. Perhaps more important, she has sense – an innate intelligence that works to piece together the apparently unconnected events of the day. I know she is curious about what brought her former gang leader here to the waterfront. Or, if not to the waterfront – which, after all, has long been the haunt of smugglers and thieves – then to his death. And whether AD’s demise had any connection with the appearance of her latest client, a man whose old-school manners would seem to imply honor, if not exactly honesty. For although this place is a common assembly ground for men of all stripes, the timing of these meetings a bit too much for chance. Even without the knowledge I would give her – that I saw this man, walking deep in thought, as if he had emerged from that low stone building – she has the wit to wonder.
In one matter, what Peter said is correct. The waterfront is not safe, not for a girl like Care. For it is not merely the land and water that clash and mingle here, and that body is not the only one to have disappeared into the depths.
TEN
‘I must have just missed him.’ Care is talking to herself, rather than to me. We sit on a block of figured stone, the remnant of a building that once must have stood tall and proud. ‘I saw him go in not that long before, and the tide is only that low for an hour. Maybe less. He can’t have been there long.’
I curl my tail around my feet, enjoying the warmth that has soaked even into this hard surface. The girl has taken her shoes off and squeezes them, wringing a few mean drops out onto the ground.
‘But surely someone would have noticed.’ She shakes the shoe, as a wave of gratitude washes over me. I may have missed my chance down on the sand, but I am grateful to be dry. ‘I mean, if he fell.’
My pleasure dissipates in a wave of annoyance. Surely, I trained her to observe the stages of death better. Surely, she should have noted what I did. Would that I could have found a way to communicate this. I duck my head in shame.
‘Unless.’ She bites her lip again, then shakes off the thought. ‘I don’t know, Blackie. I can’t see him falling without crying out. And those men – someone would have heard him.’
She sighs. ‘Maybe, if he was startled. Or maybe it was the noise of that truck …’
I am on my feet. How to tell her what I know? That the man was dead before he hit the harbor floor. I stare at her, willing her to see in my eyes an intelligence akin to hers. A helpmate, if not her former mentor.
Her own eyes are as green as mine, but distant. ‘Unless he didn’t scream.’ She’s speaking slowly, as the thought begins to take shape. And suddenly she is present, meeting my gaze with an intensity I know well. ‘Blackie, what if he was dead already when he fell?’
It may be inappropriate to purr. We are discussing the demise of a man, albeit an evil one. But I cannot restrain myself, and push my head against her in an outpouring of joy. She is smart, this girl. Even with her inferior senses, she has discerned the truth.
Only, she is not finished. ‘There wasn’t any blood,’ she says now, piecing together the evidence. ‘Not that there necessarily would be, with a broken neck …’ Her voice trails off as she drums her fingers on the stone. It is a self-soothing gesture, much like my own constant bathing. She is thinking – piecing the parts together – and I rejoice.
‘I’ve got to get over to Quirty’s,’ she says at last, naming the keeper. ‘I’ve wasted enough time and I’ve got cases.’ She gives the shoe one final squeeze and then begins to lace it up again. ‘But I’m going to find out what happened to AD, Blackie. I mean, nobody should die like that, and just be swept away by the tide.’
The girl is not looking at me. Her gaze is turned inward, toward thoughts I can only imagine. That body, perhaps, as it floated out to sea. The scrawny gang leader, as she had last seen him – full of purpose and intent. Or earlier, perhaps, when he ran her small cohort of children and teens, manufacturing and peddling the substance known as scat among the despairing of the city. Maybe she envisions something different – the tasks she has before her. I do not know.
What I do know is that her face differs in essentials from mine. Even her eyes, although they share with mine their color, appear dissimilar, not only in shape, but also in the emotion they telegraph to the world. Some of it is her lack of fur. My sleek black coat camouflages many of the ravages of time as well as both injuries and fatigue, while her bare skin – pale to the point of pallor – flushes and blanches at any provocation. Some of it is the very structure of her face, muscles that pull and shape her features.
This is why I stare at her, though she looks not at me. On her face now, I witness the play of her thoughts, if not their content. She is considering – weighing – what she knows, and the options for what lies ahead. When she gives a small nod, her mouth setting in a straight line, I know, even before she turns once more to me, that she has arrived at a decision.
‘You’re so funny, Blackie.’ I blink up at her, in a silent query. I do not understand what she finds humorous, or why she now smiles and reaches for my head. ‘Sometimes I think you’re trying to read my mind. Our new client liked you, too. Did you notice?’
She rubs one warm palm down my back and then straightens, before I can find a way to reply. As well as I can read this girl, I still fail to comprehend many of her inner workings. I would have her know my confusion. My concerns about this client, the strange, heavy woman who labored up our stairs. But Care is standing, and no longer regards the twitch of my tail, or the slight backward tilt of my ears.
I breathe and compose myself, seeking solace in the knowledge that I have lightened her mood by my presence. As she hoists her bag up on her shoulder and begins to walk, I trot alongside her, my tail as elevated as I would have my state of mind.
It only drops somewhat as she turns down a narrow passage. The printer’s alley, once again – a destination as familiar for its scent as for these dark, forgotten streets. I would have hoped, given the exchange at the harborside, that she might have given over this task, this client. But no, this girl has her honor. She has undertaken a case for a client, and I see now that she will put her own need aside. No matter what questions she mulls over about AD’s watery end, she will conduct busines
s first. She will, as her cant runs, ‘ask the questions’.
Another turn, and the way is shadowed. The afternoon has grown warm, but here the buildings lean close. A pile of bricks draws me aside. It has existed long enough for its honeycombed spaces to serve as a warren for creatures nesting this season. I sniff, but at this hour, it is quiet. The young have already weaned and gone, their dam sleeps until dusk, safely beyond my grasp.
‘Care.’ One word, spoken softly, but my ears twitch at the sound. A small man, as pale as dust, has emerged from a hidden entrance, several steps down. ‘Please.’
He steps aside, holding a heavy door that hangs badly from its latches. She passes inside, but he lingers, surveying the street for signs of life.
He does not consider me, nor the female who shudders and turns, her dreams disturbed by my spoor. This makes it easy for me to slip by, a dark shadow on a shady street, as he turns to follow her inside, and the door swings closed.
‘A client, you say?’ He has seated himself behind his desk, while the girl sits opposite. The tools of his trade – a pen in a chipped mug, his makeshift inkwell; the magnifying glass that allows this mole-like man to read – are arrayed before him, as is a sheet of paper, scraped clean, for notes. But his hands remain in his lap, and as I circumnavigate the room, I make note of them. Their placement, beneath the surface of the desk and out of sight to his human visitor, suggest secrets or a desire to be hidden. Clenched fingers, intertwined, suggest a fear or apprehension that he would control. Fear of the girl, perhaps? It does not seem likely. The two have done business before, and she has served him honestly and well. ‘A woman? And I sent her to you?’
I sniff at his knee, which bounces nervously in place. The line of questioning has upset him, it is clear.
‘Heavy set, with an accent.’ Care is describing the first client, the woman who seeks her brother. ‘She said she had received letters sent by you. Sent by her brother. It contained a bequest. Her name – the name she gave me – is Augusta, Augusta Blaze.’
Blaze – the fire. The association comes to me unbidden, and I sit back, considering. This man, the keeper, may have reason to be disturbed. The woman who ascended so laboriously to Care’s office had an uncanny air about her, as uncontrollable as flame, despite the encumbrances of illness and of age. The way she stopped on the stairs, apparently to catch her breath; the manner in which she greeted me, as if she knew me. As if …
No, it’s not possible. I shudder to shake off the strange fancy that had possessed me. I would remember. Besides, the man is talking.
‘She came to see me about an old client, she said?’ His fingers tighten on each other. ‘And then I gave her your name?’
Care’s body moves as she nods. She does not see his disquiet, or not its depth. She seeks only to clarify her story. ‘She has lost touch with her brother.’ I hear her pause. Consider. She has begun to question the client’s story, perhaps. Or simply seeks to separate that which she can verify from that which she has been told. ‘She believes him to be dead, and she seeks – information. She says you referred her to me.’
‘I do refer clients.’ The man’s voice grows quieter, as if he were weighing his words. Sifting through his memory, perhaps, for such a one as the girl speaks of? Or does he hear the gap in her story – the omission of the object for which she seeks. ‘Those I know, at any rate.’ A pause. ‘I understand that you are trying to increase your trade.’
‘And I’m grateful.’ She’s quick to reassure him, and I find myself wondering why she has not told the man the whole story. Not that I find fault with her caution. ‘My business is growing.’
She says no more about his referrals, about the work he sends her way. She doesn’t have to. They both understand that they share a particular stratum of this city: those who have papers or items they wish to keep secure, but who lack the strength or the allies to guarantee this. Those who still eke out a living or trade in more than their physical labor. Not many of their kind still exist here, making them natural allies, even if past services did not link them together. ‘But I thought that, because you met with her, maybe you could tell me more. Maybe you remember something about her brother or the letter he sent. She didn’t give me much to go on.’
A glimmer of insight makes my whiskers prick up. She does not believe in the keepsake the woman says she seeks. Does not believe in its importance, at any rate. Nor does she entirely trust the man seated opposite.
‘If I could …’ He flattens his hands on his thighs now. He inhales.
‘I’m not asking you to break a confidence,’ Care says. She hears his hesitation. Gleans from it the scruples that bind his profession.
‘No, it’s not that.’ A sigh, or maybe just the exhalation of that breath. ‘This woman you speak of – she sounds familiar. I may know her – know of her, I should say. She has not visited, nor anyone who could be her. In fact, only one person has come seeking a finder, or one who offers the services you provide.’
She straightens in her seat, waiting.
‘A young man came the other day. He was asking questions, looking for answers about a man who had disappeared …’ The hands are still now, resting on the worn fabric. ‘I advised him to seek you out,’ he says. ‘A young man, pale, with red hair. He said his name was Rafe.’
‘Rafe?’ She catches herself and reveals no more. I am heartened. By her own means, she must have discerned this man’s anxiety. The tension of an untruth or something concealed somewhere among his words. She has experience with this man, a history that has created trust, but she knew enough to be circumspect. Now, however, she requires that he be more forthcoming. ‘And – he came alone?’
I could purr. Belated as her words are, she is questioning the assignment, the man on the wharf – Peter – who hired her.
‘Yes.’ The syllable comes slowly. He is weighing his words, this man. Deciding how much to share, much as she did. These are the ways, the times, even among those who have come to know each other, to some extent. ‘He did, and he described the man in much the same terms you did. But he was inquiring for another, he told me.’ I hear him swallow. See his body rise up and relax as he exhales. This, then, is what he has been withholding. ‘He said he was working for someone. That he would find the missing man himself, and that he didn’t need to hire anyone. He wanted the custom for himself.’
Now it is the girl’s turn to fall silent, and the man seated opposite her to deliberate and wonder. His hands flex once more against his legs, but he keeps his peace. Waiting, I assume, for the girl to offer her thoughts.
‘If I did you wrong,’ he says at last. ‘If I put you in harm’s way in any way, I am sorry. And I—’ another swallow, another flex – ‘I will do what I can. I could help you leave this city. I have contacts, to the south.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ She pauses. ‘But thank you. It’s—’ A sigh as heavy as the girl herself. ‘This man? Rafe? I believe he’s gone missing too.’
The room falls silent, and I prick my ears forward, in the hope that she will notice what is plainly obvious to me. She cannot smell him, the traces his body emits that reveal fear or surprise. She cannot see the agitation I witnessed in the movements of his hands and his feet. But this quiet, this undue calm – surely she will hear how unnatural it is. Will question why her statement did not unnerve him, or raise further lines of inquiry.
‘You’re not surprised.’ Her voice so composed, I close my eyes to savor it.
‘No.’ Another sigh. ‘I didn’t know, but no, I’m not.’
Silence, but she waits. She is learning, this girl. I may have told her, once upon a time, but she has seen for herself how silence works. The weight of words will pry open the lips of most, secrets being heavier than simple truth.
‘I did try to warn him.’ And so it begins. ‘He wasn’t trained in seeking, as you were. He didn’t know how to inquire without revealing too much.’
The girl is holding her breath. He is building to something, and sh
e can hear it.
‘The man he was asking about – the man you’re asking about – is dead. Murdered. He was killed because of his own inquiries. Because of the work he did too well,’ says the little man, the keeper. ‘I gather you did not realize it, Care, but the man you seek is one you knew. He was your teacher. You knew him as the old man.’
ELEVEN
The room spins and then contracts. I open my mouth to wail – my chest filling with the howl – and barely catch myself in time. I am on all fours. My tail extended. The fur along my back and ruff on end in terror and alarm. But for all my shock, I am unnoticed. I am a cat, small by human standards, and I am hidden beneath a desk.
It is as I feared. My world has been upended, but still I can keep my own counsel. I exhale, feeling my swollen sides subside, and listen as the man continues to talk.
‘I didn’t contact anyone. Not even you,’ he is saying. His voice is sad, but easy. I believe he speaks the truth. ‘When word got out, I mourned him, in my fashion. We were never friends, not really. But he did use my services. He trusted me, and I saw in him a remnant of the old ways, from before.’
‘But my client – the woman …’ Care interrupts. She has been shaken, as well. I hear it in her tone, her hesitation. ‘She said you sent her.’
‘No. Though maybe he reached out to her before he – before the end. He had great faith in you, you know.’
I sink back to the floor, grief flooding me. If I could remember … but I don’t. Only that night – the ambush. I was lured and trapped, the hunter turned into prey. Led as much by my hubris as by the trail so carefully laid to that warehouse and to what should have been – what was – my watery end. A masterful plan, designed to dispose of a formidable opponent. Of me.
This is why I worry so at the girl’s too often heedless acts. She sees the world as I once did, a slapdash place of petty thieves and thoughtless thugs. The scavengers who scrap and grapple over the city like some wounded beast. Foes who can be bested, wrongs corrected and made right. She does not comprehend that one will drives them all. A criminal mastermind, the shadow behind so many little crimes. A dark brilliance whom, I fear, has noticed her, who may – in his own way – be grateful for a service she did him unwittingly.